


Stars; their constellations

by winterysomnium



Category: Voltron - Fandom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith doesn't realize half of the things he says are the corniest most embarrassing things, M/M, Minor Character Death, SHEITH - Freeform, Shiro always knows what to say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 04:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7743745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith ponders stars, Shiro ponders Keith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars; their constellations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on tumblr: "heyyyyyyyyyy for your sheith prompt idea, maybe "school might have taught them about the stars but Shiro was the one that told him about the constellations" ? idk there is just so many cute headcanons on the fact that shiro and keith knew each other before voltron, i love it x)" prompted by tsubulle; my tumblr is winterysomnium, if anyone's interested.

The textbook stays open until Keith’s flashlight gives out, the loopy connections he has drawn getting lost, losing their distinction, without the contrast, without the glow; he claps it shut.

“It’s unlike you, sneaking out,” Shiro says, his night shift barely starting, barely a third in; he guards the barracks but he never becomes a stranger, he’s never sharper or scolding or anything but soft ( _kind_ ); Keith looks up, into the stars.

“It’s unlike you, ditching your post,” Keith answers; Shiro laughs.

“Someone has to check on disobeying cadets,” he smiles, sits next to him, Keith promises not to tell.

“Stars confuse me,” Keith says, instead; knows when Shiro’s shoulders hunch, when his fingers meet, between his thighs. “They are disorienting. Many of them don’t even _exist_ , anymore. We can’t get close to them. They’re gone.” He sighs, like he’s lost something, way out there, something forgotten on the surfaces of faraway moons, nonexistent orbits; Shiro leans back, copies Keith’s aching palms, the angles between him and the flat roof, him and the sky.

“It’s not _all_ bad. We know our solar system is still there, right? Has to account for something,” he answers, but it lacks conviction, lacks purpose, for Keith to accept it, for Keith to let it be.

“What do you want to do, Shiro? What do you want to accomplish with your life? Because I don’t want to look for extinct, long gone stars. For empty spaces. It’s _useless_.” and Keith just --

he doesn’t want to look for things that aren’t, anymore. Doesn’t want to look for people no one will help him find, doesn’t want to waste time solving already known histories, mysteries unfolded at graveyards, in quiet soil.

(His parents don’t have a heartbeat and Keith would rather look for myths, would rather look for ships from outer galaxies, than look for bones, for dust.)

((He’d rather look for life than minerals, than sources, than mining shafts.))

(((He’d rather look at Shiro, illuminated by the night.)))

“That’s a really difficult question, Keith. I don’t know if I can answer it,” Shiro says, knocking his knee against Keith’s, getting his attention; he lures it away from the sky and smiles, his hair falls into the dip of his nose, gets tangled in his lashes, long, uncut, but Shiro ignores it, he moves to Keith. “But I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, to not know. To just be, for a while. What do you think?” he asks him and Keith looks at their knees, at the desert below.  

“What about when you aren’t anymore? It’s all gone then,” he retorts, thinks, asks.

(Shiro connects the stars, above their heads.)

 “You still were someone, weren’t you? Even if the stars don’t exist anymore, we still see the constellations. We know what they looked like, thousands of years ago. We’ll know what they will look like, in the future, too. Even if _you_ aren’t anymore, you’re still a part of something, aren’t you?” he asks; Keith’s bones feel light, feel heavy, feel gone.

“Am I a part of you?” he asks, sinking, soaking into Shiro’s words and Shiro touches his shoulder, folds his fingers over Keith’s clothes.

“Of course you are,” he says, tender, raw.

Keith smiles, at the desert, at the colours of the stars, at Shiro, beside him.

He’s part of something great then, he thinks.

(He’s part of something incredible.)


End file.
